Nancy Reagan, in a Whisper, Fights Bush Over Stem Cells

The NY Times ^ | September 29, 2002 | By ALESSANDRA STANLEY

[SBeck]

I want somebody to justify to me why stem cell research is being stymied by the Bush administration. Go ahead justify it and then imagine telling this courageous woman your rationalization. Mike Deaver's comment at the end is dead on and for those of you who are caretakers my heart goes out to you.

Rational discussion encouraged, puerile nonsense ignored, fire away.

[sinkspur]

I want somebody to justify to me why stem cell research is being stymied by the Bush administration.

George W. Bush believes, as do I, that embryos are human beings.

Go ahead justify it and then imagine telling this courageous woman your rationalization. Mike Deaver's comment at the end is dead on and for those of you who are caretakers my heart goes out to you.

If harvesting the brains from living, but terminal, human beings could cure Alzheimer's, would you favor it?

Life is not fair, and nobody is going to cheat death.

[Oberon]

We shouldn't dice some people to improve quality of life for others. When Jonathan Swift suggested a similar measure, he was writing satire.

[onedoug]

However many millions may argue that the destruction of human embryos is moral, will never make it so.

[aimhigh]

Anybody with a small tiny of Alzheimers knows that stem cells will never offer an Alzheimer's patient any hope of recovery. My mom has Alzheimers. Someday a cure or prevention will be found, and it absolutely will have nothing to do with stem cells.

The press has been nearly silent about the horrifying results of many stem cell experiments. Bad science.

[aimhigh]

The above post should read, Anybody with a small tiny amount of understanding of Alzheimers

[smith288]

My answer is pretty simple:

Dont fight God. You will lose.

[moodyskeptic]

Also, no offence to Nancy, but stem cell research is not outlawed by Fed Gov, only direct Fed funding for it. If it had real promise, the market would make it economically viable for private research, ethics aside.

[ladyinred]

Anybody with a small tiny of Alzheimers knows that stem cells will never offer an Alzheimer's patient any hope of recovery. My mom has Alzheimers. Someday a cure or prevention will be found, and it absolutely will have nothing to do with stem cells.

Same here. I can't justify abortion for this either, no matter how much I wish for a cure.

[537 Votes]

I want somebody to justify to me why stem cell research is being stymied by the Bush administration.

If we say that embryos are 'nonviable' and therefore have no right to life, how do we avoid saying that people with Alzheimer's are viable and still have a right to life?

Embryos have the potential to develop into healthy, productive human beings with long life spans. Alzheimer's victims do not have this potential, regardless of the legal status of stem cell research.

Perhaps we should be talking about performing medical research on Alzheimer's victims, to study how we might improve the lives of embryos.

Does that sound cruel? Well, it is equally cruel to sacrifice the babies for the old people. And our society is the first society in human history to conceive of doing just that. We've come a long way from the decks of the Titanic, where millionaires allowed children from steerage to take their places on the lifeboats.

[Cicero]

First of all, there is absolutely no evidence that it would work. Let's not be naive, the NY Times is supporting this because they love abortion. And they are using Nancy Reagan's name to revive the issue bacause they hope to split conservatives.

Second, it's immoral to kill one person to save another. Even if it did work. It's basic Nazi medicine.

Next thing we'll be told that unborn babies would make nice lamp shades, and it's a pity to let them go to waste.

[Tomalak]

Innocent human life is either sacred or it isn't. The ends don't justify the means. Once we start selecting special classes of person who can be used for experiments for the benefit of the rest, no one is really safe.

There was a fantastic article about this issue last year that changed my mind completely, but The Spectator site seems to be down at the moment. I'll post it here when it is restored.

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[RJCogburn]

Thanks for posting this. I'm with you.

Who knows if stem cells, adult, cord, embryonic will be an answer for Alzheimer's or anything else. That is why one does research, to find out. Thankfully, the research will continue, as it should, with or without the blessing of Bush or the feds.

[RJCogburn]

Anybody with a small tiny of Alzheimers knows that stem cells will never offer an Alzheimer's patient any hope of recovery

Yours is an assertion that may or may not be correct. The certainty with which you make it is fatuous.

[supercat]

I want somebody to justify to me why stem cell research is being stymied by the Bush administration.

I am unaware of the administration attempting to obstruct use of placental/umbilical or adult-derived stem cells; while the latter don't seem as promising yet, from what I understand the former have enormous potential and are available in sufficient quantities to actually do some good.

Beyond the moral difficulties of harvesting stem cells from embryos which were conceived for exactly that purpose [if any therapies based on such cells take off, that's exactly what would happen] there are serious questions about the 'reliability' of such cells. Stem cells taken from the placenta/umbilical cord of a healthy baby can be considered to be pretty well "genetically pre-screened"; if the baby is apparently healthy, there can't be anything too much wrong with it genetically. On the other hand, a significant portion of embryos have very serious genetic defects which would prevent them from developing into a healthy baby. Trying to use stem cells from such an embryo may have disastrous consequences.

[RJCogburn]

Trying to use stem cells from such an embryo may have disastrous consequences.

Maybe, but that is not a reason to not do the research.

[The FRugitive]

Destroying embreyos violates the fundamental right to life.

[sinkspur]

Maybe, but that is not a reason to not do the research.

You obviously do not believe embryos to be human beings.

Since you don't, you're not going to get concurrence from those of us who believe they are.

Bush is only cutting off federal funding for this research. You are free to fund as much of this as your checkbook will allow.

[supercat]

Maybe, but that is not a reason to not do the research.

From what I've read, umbilical/placental stem cells appear to have the same promise as embryonic ones, in addition to being inherently "genetically pre-screened" and being available in more usable quantities than embryonic ones.

To me those factors would suggest that research in that direction would be more useful than research with embryonic stem cells. Am I wrong in my thinking somewhere?

[Artist]

Perhaps we should be talking about performing medical research on Alzheimer's victims, to study how we might improve the lives of embryos.

Does that sound cruel? Well, it is equally cruel to sacrifice the babies for the old people. And our society is the first society in human history to conceive of doing just that. We've come a long way from the decks of the Titanic, where millionaires allowed children from steerage to take their places on the lifeboats.

VERY well said.